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Ed Pettibone: It was good to the smiling face of A Roy Medley on page 8 of the print edition of the June edition of Baptist Today. It was even better to read Dr. Medley's article on " What Makes Baptist Different " in the series "Street questions about Baptist" in celebration of the 400th Anniversary of Baptist.

In one place Dr. Medley speaking of our ancestors, writes "Baptist where inspired to emphasize the personal (not private) nature of faith as they read of God's promise of a new Covenant 'written on the heart' so that 'all know me from the least to the greatest' (Jer. 31:31-34), as they where moved by the profoundly Personal affirmations of faith in the Psalms 9e.g., Ps.139 as they were moved touched by the ministry of Jesus with individuals and as they were convicted by the testimony of the New Testament to the importance of faith that is personal. "

He gives several examples of how theis "Personal Faith" has played out in Baptist life over the centuries.

To me the parenthetical emphases when he writes "Baptist where inspired to emphasize the personal (not private) nature of faith..." was the most cogent of many great points.

John continually writes the best editorials in the country. I appreciated . I wish that my former SBC colleagues and friends in Oklahoma, including the Executive Director, would read this. But alas, most will never see it...

Sandy didn't particularly care for Johnny's op-ed that you reference, David.

See:

His blog post is built on a false dichotomy which is that moderate Baptists can't continue to create a new identity and cooperate with other Baptists as long as moderate Baptist publications are, on occasion, critical of SBCers and SBC endeavors.

I would argue that if Johnny ignored the SBC or only heaped false praise on the SBC, he'd be doing a lousy job as the editor of a Baptist publication. Those moderates who write about Baptists (books, newspapers, magazines, journals, blogs, etc.) can't ignore the SBC. In fact, I believe that it is often necessary for moderate Baptists to invoke Southern Baptists and the Southern Baptist Convention in the public arena in order to distinguish a centrist/progressive Baptist identity from a fundamentalist Baptist identity.

Sometimes the Southern Baptist Convention needs lambasting....

So, um, why ask the question of you already know the answer?

Don't waste your breath.

David brought Johnny's editorial up, I left a comment.

Yea, it's a thread drift. But I rarely if ever see you complain about thread drifts in other forums - pretty sure you participate in thread drifts as well....

Well, David, I think given what Ed pointed to, maybe your characterization is, if not too broad, too localised. But I still think the problem is breadth. "Most Southern Baptist leaders" I would accept; "Nearly all Southern Baptist leaders" I would consider. But "Southern Baptists" where a reasonable inference might be "All Southern Baptists from housewives to IMB chairs", that strikes me as crying out for qualification.

To be sure, Ed, I agree with the gist of your critique of David's posts in this thread, and you're right, when I wrote "Picasso" I wasn't referring to Pablo.